First flight of 2013
Slow Motion version here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqf-4fSMB_w
I have had the Cularis for about 18 months with many successful missions using the APM2.0 (brilliant bit of kit - Thanks!) and no crashes what so ever,I suppose it had to happen one day...
Took off yesterday evening at about 5pm, no wind and fairly warm for this time of year.
All was going great, flew a close circular mission, put it in loiter mode above my head, switched to manual, ok for about 15 seconds then totally lost control.
No amount of panicky stick movement or switch throwing had any effect even tried turning the transmitter off and on - nothing.
With a brand new Gopro Black edition on-board it was soon out of sight in a slow repeating stall, luckily in a pretty straight line over open farmland as far as i could tell. Jumped in the car with a torch and spent a couple of hours looking and listening for it (The ESC should be emitting bleeps).
No luck.
At 7am this morning i spotted it with binoculars about a mile away in the middle of a muddy field and trekked off to get it, expecting the worse.
The air frame is fine apart from a slightly compressed nose and melted/chard bits of electrics, there had been a fire in the cockpit!
The Gopro was also fine even though it spent a night in a frosty field with no waterproof casing on it (The Frame).
Footage from the Gopro has revealed that the ESC had gone bang and started a fire destroying itself and receiver - everything else including the APM2 looks ok.
The ESC was a Scorpion Commander 45a 5v/5a SBEC LBLv700 which should have been more that adequate for my setup.
I chose it for the 5v output (so as not to damage the APM2) and the 5A SBEC to provide a good clean current to the servos/receiver/apm.
I believe that the ESC was faulty, but here is my setup if anyone wants to comment.
Multiplex Cularis - Standard 12" x 6" folding prop
Futaba R617FS
Scorpion Commander 45a 5v/5a SBEC LBLv700
ThunderPower TP3900-3SPL25
AXI GoldLine 2820/10
APMv2
2xHS65mg + 2xHS85mg
I count myself very lucky to have found the plane with most of the expensive bits intact - having read other post on here!
James
Replies
I'm sorry for your loss. When you posted your title of "burn 'n' crash" instead of the opposite, I figured you had poor language/grammar skills like so many here on this site. Now I see you meant exactly what you stated. The last photo you posted above says it all. I'm glad for you that it wasn't a total loss. Thanks for the great post and video.